Cisco acquires antivirus firm for $830m

Cisco Systems has agreed to pay $830 million in cash and stock to acquire privately held IronPort Systems, a maker of anti-spam and antivirus security products, an Associated Press report said.

The Associated Press report said the deal is expected to close in the third quarter of fiscal 2007.
Analysts said the acquisition will help Cisco further shed its image as solely a maker of networking infrastructure gear and capitalize on products and services that utilize the network itself, the Associated Press report said.

Cisco, which makes the routers, switches and other devices used to link networks and direct traffic on the Internet, was already dominant in the network security arena.

But executives at the San Jose-based company said they were keenly interested in entering the $2-billion-plus messaging security market, and further profit from the need of businesses to protect their applications from the growing amount of Internet threats.

Cisco said it plans to retain virtually all of IronPort's 408 employees and keep its headquarters in San Bruno, the report said.